a week away...

Hello, hope you are all good! It seems like an absolute age since I last posted even though it's probably only a fortnight!

Took last week off and went to visit my mum and dad for a few days who are now living up in Shropshire. We seemed to do quite a lot whilst I was there - lots of little trips out to various places - the garden centre, Ikea...etc which were nice to have a wander about. Also went to several of their local towns, including Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth and just generally pottered around really. 

I found these sweet little Easter decorations in Vinegar Hill, one of my favourite shops. I never got around to putting up an Easter tree this year but these shall be perfect for next spring, and they were a bargain at only 30p each!

Mum also treated me to this sweet little Cath Kidston mug - it is the absolute perfect size for a hot drink and I am completely in love with the colours. It goes so well with the enamel CK plate I bought recently too! I have a real thing for pretty pastel kitchenware at the minute.

Unfortunately I didn't really take many photos whilst I was there, despite lugging my camera around with me most of the time, though I did take a few of these greedy geese in Bridgnorth!

We (maybe stupidly) decided to give them some of our leftover sandwiches. It ended with us running away literally as fast as we could with a flock of geese hurtling along behind. Was quite funny but they do scare me a bit - think it's those big beaks!

In fact, this one has a very mean look in his eye doesn't he?! I think he was the ringleader!

Anyway, I also managed to do quite a bit more of my tapestry whilst I was away. I literally hadn't picked it up since Christmas, but I'm pleased with how much I got done... Still got a fair bit to do, but it's getting there!

There is so much detail in it, every time you look there is something else to catch your eye - My favourite parts have to be the little dog and beehive!

Anyway, it was a really nice break, but I now have lots to catch up on. Have been working on Halloween and Christmas projects this week which is always weird at this time of year. I also have a lot of blog reading to catch up on too- hopefully will pop in on you all soon, just don't know where the time goes sometimes!

Have a great week x

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Have been really busy these last few days. I'm planning on taking  a little time off at the end of the week, but suddenly, there seems like a million and one things to do! I worked the whole weekend in an effort to get ahead in the list of things I need to finish this week but still a little behind where I wanted to be at this point!

Anyway amongst other things I was finishing a new trade order this morning which reminded me that I was going to blog about a couple more of my recent stockists...

...one of which is Pins and Ribbons, an absolutely gorgeous  little shop in Eaglescliffe, in the North East of England.

The Pins and Ribbons shop sells a beautiful range of soft furnishings and pretty accessories for the home, including fabric memo boards, cushions, aprons, draught excluders, bunting and footstools, all handmade in the North East by a small team of highly skilled people. As well as their own products, they also stock a selection of other handmade items from designer-makers all around the UK.

 

  

They are currently stocking a wide selection of my badges, magnets and handbag mirrors, so if you are in the area, make sure you pop in. Wish I could but it is so very far away with me based down here in Somerset, which is such a shame as it looks just gorgeous with so many lovely things all in one place!

  

If you're not near enough to pop in though, you can always find out more about Pins and Ribbons on their lovely website. They also have a facebook page (which is co-incidentally where I have *pinched* all these beautiful pictures from!)

Anyway, that's just about it for this evening - I've got a few more things that need doing tonight so best go get on with them if I'm going to get everything on my list done in time! 

Hopefully I will be 'on holiday' as of Friday, though I've already put my website in holiday mode in preparation (wishful thinking!) and my NOTHS shop will be following suit. Can't wait - I haven't had any real time off since Christmas and am starting to flag, really feel like I just need a few days of doing 'nothing'! 

Thinking of leaving OH in charge of the house and going to visit my parents for a few days as not seen them in months and I fancy a bit of R&R and home comfort too :) Not sure if I will have time to blog again before I go, but will be taking my laptop with me, so should be able to keep up with my blog reading anyhow! 

Right, I'm off... Hope you all have a lovely couple of weeks, sure they will fly by and I'll be back before I know it! Take care,

Jenny x

All images copyright of Pins and Ribbons

And the winner is...

So then, my cupcake giveaway has also been running all week - thank you to everybody who entered and a big hello to all my new followers :) Before I announce the winner I also want to say thank you to all of you who kindly posted, blogged, tweeted and generally helped spread the word about my little blog and giveaway - I really appreciated it (especially cos I was a meanie this time and didn't even give you extra entries for all your hard work!)

 

Anyway I decided just to use good old random number generator  again to pick the winner because it's already quite late, I'm feeling pretty tired and just couldn't face the thought of writing out all those names right now!

So without any further ado, the winner picked at random is number 10  - which is Helen Bottrill! 

Congratulations Helen, I will email you in a moment but you will soon be receiving a cupcake-y package in the post! 

Anyway a big thank you once again everyone for taking part. I expect I will be doing another giveaway sometime in the not too distant future, so make sure to keep an eye out! Hope you all have a great week x

Crafts Beautiful

I'm so very excited to finally be able to share one of the projects I've been working on recently! For the last few months, I've been doing some freelance design work for Crafts Beautiful magazine, and my first project for them is now in print!

The project is for a length of appliquéd cupcake bunting, matching birthday card and place setting and is in the June issue which is out now. It's so exciting to see it in print and I love how they have styled the shots, they've made it look so pretty!

It's seemed like quite a long wait for it to come out - I did the project back at the beginning of Feburary, but that's just the way most magazines seem to work - so far in advance that it's sometimes easy to lose track of what season you are supposed to be designing for. The weirdest thing I always find is doing Christmasy designs in the middle of Summer, there's just something not quite right with that!

I also kept it pretty quiet and only told a handful of people just in case they didn't use it, so it is nice to be able to share it now!

I've also been commissioned to do quite a few more projects in the coming months so fingers crossed I will be in some of the future issues too! It's a really exciting offshoot to my own textiles work, and something which I am really enjoying, so  looking forward to what the next few months will bring...

Anyway talking of work, I really best go get on with some - yesterday I had an impromtu trip to the seaside with a friend - was so lovely to catch up, but what with the bank holiday weekend too, I don't feel like I've done a right lot of work in the last few days and it's starting to build up! 

Oh but one last thing before I go... don't forget my giveaway (for co-incidentally a selection of lovely cupcake goodies) is still running... it ends this Sunday so make sure you enter here to be in with a chance of winning! 

Have a lovely rest of your week, back soon! xx

Cupcake Giveaway!

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Hello! Well I hope you all enjoyed the Royal Wedding celebrations on Friday, wasn't it lovely?! We had friends over to watch it during the day but there were no street parties near us and we weren't organised enough to hold our own! Was a lovely day though - thought Kate just looked absolutely beautiful, so radiant! Hope you had fun whatever you were doing...

Anyway, back to what I'm supposed to be writing about - it's taken a little while but I've finally crept up to 200 blog followers so it's now time to announce my giveaway to celebrate!

Have been thinking long and hard about what the prize should be, and have decided that it will be a giveaway with a cupcake theme this time. My cupcake items are some of my most popular, so I will be giving away a little selection to one lucky follower, including...

...a cupcake fridge magnet

 ... a pretty cupcake lavender bag

 and a cupcake writing paper set!

I'm going to try and keep this giveaway super simple this time, unlike in the past where I've had about 5 different ways to enter! So...

How To Enter

♥ To be in with a chance of winning these lovely cupcake goodies, all you need to do is follow my blog - preferably by GFC, and leave a comment below telling me that you are a follower - That's it!

♥ The giveaway will end in one weeks time on Sunday 8th May at 7.00pm GMT, and it is open worldwide so anyone can enter!

♥ As always, if you would be kind enough to tweet/blog/post about my giveaway, I would be so very grateful :) . 

Good luck everyone, hope you have a lovely week. See you back here next Sunday to announce the winner! Jenny x